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How to get a ton of free traffic from digg

by Daniel Adams
16 replies
Hi folks,
I've been running websites, and using digg, for a couple of years now and I see a lot of people either using digg the wrong way or not taking advantage of obvious opportunities to profit from the site.

Most users would call me a typical power digger. I've had over 200 front pages (a fp story=thousands of viewers) since I started using the site. Here's my account
Digg / HeDiggMe
Digg / HeDiggMe / History / Submissions
If you look at my last few pages of submissions, I get about 40% of my stories to the front page. The 27% figure is skewed low from the early years of my account.

So without writing a long and involved ebook, here is how you become a power digger and some ways you can take advantage of digg traffic.

First, being a power digger is simple:
1) create an account and follow 80-100 other top diggers whom you find interesting. To find power diggers, go to di66.net or socialblade.com
2) several times a day whenever you have a few minutes free, go to your account page >> Friends activity >> Submissions
3) Digg all your friends' stories. Leave a witty comment if you think of one
4) Post interesting stories/videos/articles about any subject. I rarely submit more than 4 on a busy day
5) After a few days go to friendstatistics.com and put in your user name. keep the people who followed you back or any new followers you have. Rinse and repeat the process. Dump the deadbeats when you find you have too many people to follow.
*Optional* 6) Get a gtalk account and put it in your profile page. Do NOT use your primary google account. I use pidgin for all my instant messaging.

I repeat steps 3 & 4 several times a day. Step 5 once a week. I quit my IM list when it got to be too distracting.
Now, how to optimize and profit from digg:

Submitting your squeeze page or sales page is pointless if your goal is direct traffic (which it should be).
People reading digg are the least qualified buyers. Therefore you should be posting stories about general topics and advertise a more specific niche from that article. For example an article about approaching women may have an ad or a teaser for a dating niche squeeze page.

If you ignore that advice and do post a squeeze/sales page, do it from an account who is not a regular digg user.
The only reason to submit such a page is to rank in search engines, so make good use of keywords in the title. A digg user with a following will get flamed for spamming, but an unknown account will serve your purpose.

If you edit the website, spread the article over 2-4 pages, but not 20 pages
This increases pageviews and decreases the load on your server. Also, link to related pages on your site and friends' sites, especially if you see a load of traffic coming.

Submit stories from friends' sites. You have leverage to expand your network.
If you post an article from somebody's site and it hits the front page, at least shoot them a courtesy email. You started a conversation that could lead to a good relationship in the future. If it's a mainstream news organization, try the author. Also see if they have a social media person. If they do, you just made their day.

Only submit a story if you think it can make the front page...
Your eye for this gets better with experience. The reason I point this out is because people will ask you to post stories for them. A LOT. Get used to saying no, and make sure they are aware it's not about them if you think their content sucks. I usually tell people I'll take a look at their article before agreeing to do anything. Likewise before I ask somebody for a digg, I gauge how much they like the story first, and if they have room to submit one more right now.

...but do not expect every story to make the front page.
Depending on 1 story to get 20k pageviews is way too risky.

The majority of your stories should be articles that you find fascinating and you have no personal stake.
And keep posting a few stories a day, so you have enough to gauge who's been following you next time you're on friendstatistics.com. Good sources for stories are fark.com, reddit.com, and the "most popular stories" widget on any news site.

Also post stories from the most commonly sourced websites
Stats of the Most Popular Posts: Digg's Top Sources - 365 days | di66.net

-use the firefox or chrome extension to quickly see if a page has been submitted already

Do not submit every page from your site.
Rarely submit stories from your own site.
Have other diggers post stories from your site.
I know that's actually 3 points, but they are 3 common & similar mistakes that frequently get accounts or sites banned.

Do not rely on digg or any 1 method as your sole source of traffic.
That's just stupid.

Don't pay or agree to be paid for diggs.
Also stupid and not worth it. You will get better $ from the pageviews and lead generation anyway. As I mentioned earlier, any digging you do for anyone should be for the sake of opening/extending a conversation. You can talk other business later when you have their attention.


This got long and I left out a lot. If you have questions or fine points let me know
DJA
#article marketing #digg #free #lead generation #pageviews #regularly #tens #thousands #traffic #viewers
  • Profile picture of the author Heidi White
    Thanks that's really helpful.

    Let's start a dig exchange - I'll submit 5 pages from your site to Diggs, if you submit 5 pages from mine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Adams
    I get that offer a lot. I dont promise I'll digg anything for anyone, and I have a pretty deep roster of friends who can digg my stuff.

    If you're building up your digg profile I can show you what works, though.
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  • Profile picture of the author PerigV
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author carlos123
      Interesting and valuable post Daniel but digg is nofollow so it's useless more or less to improve backlinking, at least not directly but then again your approach is not aimed at direct benefit anyway.

      Still social traffic from what I have read and heard does not convert well at all for clicking on ads or in general.

      It's a time drain to keep having to post on social traffic sites to keep the traffic going. If you stop digging your traffic will slowly die off to nothing it would seem.

      From that standpoint it would seem better to just go for organic traffic through the search engines. Traffic that like the Energizer rabbit just keeps coming and coming (if you reach a high ranking).

      Again this is mostly stuff I have thought of or have learned. I still consider myself a newbie internet marketer so it all might be a bit...shall we say...hypothetical but it makes sense I think.

      Carlos
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      • Profile picture of the author Daniel Adams
        Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post

        Interesting and valuable post Daniel but digg is nofollow so it's useless more or less to improve backlinking, at least not directly but then again your approach is not aimed at direct benefit anyway.
        Nofollow yes, but certainly not useless. Any front page story gets a huge benefit from backlinking due to casual readers linking you on their own sites and forums--this is why whenever you get a digg effect, the traffic from digg.com is only a fraction of the long term traffic. Even if an article submission is one of the majority of subs that don't pop, you will usually find the digg page and the original article in consecutive spots near the top of a related google SERP.


        Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post


        Still social traffic from what I have read and heard does not convert well at all for clicking on ads or in general.
        If you use PPC you will see your CPM spike as your traffic spikes. If you get repeated front pages, your traffic will have a sustained base as you accumulate pages being linked from other sources who discovered the site as I explained above. This creates a hundred or few hundred visitors per day each to a lot of older pages that lasts years (my experience goes to 2007). This shows up in your analytics as mostly direct linking and search results.

        Also when your biggest advertisement is a link to your facebook group or email list then you have a pool of return fans. Experiment with your own niches as advertisers too.

        And the traffic is free.


        The longer term goal is to have enough interesting content frequently (another redundant goal that's a given) while at the same time creating a community around your site's brand--this happens as your site grows. So for example with blogs this happens with commenters who become regulars, which can then become a forum. The humor site Cracked.com is a mature example of this, and holytaco.com would be an up-and-coming stage of the same example.

        Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post

        It's a time drain to keep having to post on social traffic sites to keep the traffic going. If you stop digging your traffic will slowly die off to nothing it would seem.
        I update my digg rss in the time it takes to play 1-2 songs on Grooveshark.


        Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post

        From that standpoint it would seem better to just go for organic traffic through the search engines. Traffic that like the Energizer rabbit just keeps coming and coming (if you reach a high ranking).
        Digg pages usually rank high in SERPs, and the article it points to is usually the very next search result, despite the nofollow. This remains true of stories dugg months and years ago.


        Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post

        Again this is mostly stuff I have thought of or have learned. I still consider myself a newbie internet marketer so it all might be a bit...shall we say...hypothetical but it makes sense I think.
        Carlos
        I've learned just as much from you. If I make this an infoproduct, I now know all the main objections to my sales page.
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        • Profile picture of the author carlos123
          Originally Posted by Daniel Adams View Post

          I've learned just as much from you. If I make this an infoproduct, I now know all the main objections to my sales page.
          Glad I could be of service...I think

          You've brought up some excellent points Daniel. Maybe I need to rethink the use of Digg. I come across stories all the time that might make good digg postings.

          If can post such stories and get some indirect traffic from such stories I can see real value in digging stuff. Maybe not so much for Adsense traffic since I still don't think Digg traffic would be the sort to click on ads but maybe to build a list or some other such thing.

          I will have to think through what you said some more.

          Thanks for sharing.

          Carlos
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
        Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post

        Interesting and valuable post Daniel but digg is nofollow so it's useless more or less to improve backlinking, at least not directly but then again your approach is not aimed at direct benefit anyway.
        I saw a video of Google's Matt Cutts talking about the nofollow, and according to him even Google passes some link juice through nofollow links. Granted, it may not be much, but it is some, and some search engines ignore it completely. Besides, you need a good mixture of links, including nofollow links, so your linking patterns appear natural to the search engines. Dismissing easy links because they are nofollow is a mistake, in my opinion.

        PS - Good post, Daniel.
        Signature

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        • Profile picture of the author carlos123
          Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

          Besides, you need a good mixture of links, including nofollow links, so your linking patterns appear natural to the search engines.
          Hi Dennis. Good points in your response but I would say that using a mix is one of those SEO myths that sounds good to us who know something about SEO but that in practice doesn't hold any water. Most mom and pop site owners don't know a thing about nofollow. There are multitudes of sites that don't use nofollow anything.

          I seriously doubt that Google considers the mix between nofollow and follow as any kind of ranking metric. I mean it's all theory since none of us knows with absolutely certainty what Google's ranking criteria are but I think it's a safe bet that they don't pay much attention to any so-called mix. There are just way, way too many sites that are not on the nofollow bandwagon to do otherwise I think.

          Just my opinion. I could be wrong.

          Carlos
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      • Profile picture of the author lokodomain
        Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post

        Interesting and valuable post Daniel but digg is nofollow so it's useless more or less to improve backlinking, at least not directly but then again your approach is not aimed at direct benefit anyway.

        Still social traffic from what I have read and heard does not convert well at all for clicking on ads or in general.

        It's a time drain to keep having to post on social traffic sites to keep the traffic going. If you stop digging your traffic will slowly die off to nothing it would seem.

        From that standpoint it would seem better to just go for organic traffic through the search engines. Traffic that like the Energizer rabbit just keeps coming and coming (if you reach a high ranking).

        Again this is mostly stuff I have thought of or have learned. I still consider myself a newbie internet marketer so it all might be a bit...shall we say...hypothetical but it makes sense I think.

        Carlos
        Makes sense what your saying, but if you got interesting content on your site. Once youv dugg them they should keep coming back
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        • Profile picture of the author carlos123
          Originally Posted by lokodomain View Post

          Makes sense what your saying, but if you got interesting content on your site. Once youv dugg them they should keep coming back
          Under normal circumstances and for a normal site I suppose that would be true but my sites are primarily Adsense sites. Digg traffic doesn't click on ads hardly at all (I think...don't know exactly because I've never tried to Digg my way to Adsense success but that's what I have read from a number of experienced marketers).

          Carlos
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          • Profile picture of the author Daniel Adams
            Originally Posted by carlos123 View Post

            Under normal circumstances and for a normal site I suppose that would be true but my sites are primarily Adsense sites. Digg traffic doesn't click on ads hardly at all (I think...don't know exactly because I've never tried to Digg my way to Adsense success but that's what I have read from a number of experienced marketers).

            Carlos
            In my experience they definitely do click on them. If you check your analytics, you will see that a large % of them read the featured article and then close the window. If you are publishing content regularly and using digg, it should be part of an over-arching strategy to have a multiple popular posts over time, which builds a base of return traffic. Otherwise you're depending on an improbable one-shot deal.

            I've seen both my CPC and CTR increase as the traffic comes in.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Hi Carlos. I used to think that too, but according to my source, Google does consider unnatural linking patterns, and here's why . . . once link popularity became a known factor, the incidence of crap links from crap content and crap sites greatly skyrocketed. Google noticed this, and whether they realized they were largely responsible for it or not, they recognized that the quality of their search results were slipping. That's why the new caffeine algorithm places less emphasis on raw link popularity and more emphasis quality factors, both on-site and off-site.

    Anytime they notice low quality sites ranking highly, they set out to find out why, and they have people that monitor search results every day. All they have to do is reverse engineer a site to see why it's ranking higher than the content would merit. They can quickly pull up the links to a site and search for patterns, and when they find one it's almost a sure thing that when they fix the exploit it's going to wipe out the rankings for a lot of sites, not just the one that got caught.

    If your site has a link pattern that is far outside the norm - too high a percentage of dofollow links or all high PR sites, for example - their algorithm may take notice. Too far outside the norm may cause the site to lose some of the link juice from the unnatural links (and only from the unnatural links). That's why broken (open) link wheels are recommended now rather than closed wheels, closed wheels are too easily detected.

    Now, link patterns won't matter on some kinds of sites, such as thin affiliate sites, because once a site is flagged as a TA it's not likely to rank well no matter what link practices are used, so you may as well link from everywhere because your traffic is going to come from your links rather than the search engines. Same with sites that have been flagged for on-site spam. Until you clean up the site and apply for a reconsideration, it will never rank well.

    Google does tread much more carefully with inbound linking because a webmaster doesn't have control over where many of the links to a site are coming from or how they are used. That's why a site will never be penalized for its incoming links. However, not getting the full flow of link juice may seem like a penalty if you're used to getting it.

    Hope that makes sense to you.
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    • Profile picture of the author carlos123
      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      If your site has a link pattern that is far outside the norm - too high a percentage of dofollow links or all high PR sites, for example - their algorithm may take notice. Too far outside the norm may cause the site to lose some of the link juice from the unnatural links (and only from the unnatural links). That's why broken (open) link wheels are recommended now rather than closed wheels, closed wheels are too easily detected.
      Dennis...you make a lot of sense! I will be adding some of your thoughts to my file of Adsense and SEO tips from the Masters. Great stuff.

      Thanks very much for sharing.

      Carlos
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  • Profile picture of the author mhdeaton
    5) After a few days go to friendstatistics.com and put in your user name. keep the people who followed you back or any new followers you have. Rinse and repeat the process. Dump the deadbeats when you find you have too many people to follow.

    What exactly do you mean by "keep the people that followed you back?
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Adams
      Originally Posted by mhdeaton View Post

      5) After a few days go to friendstatistics.com and put in your user name. keep the people who followed you back or any new followers you have. Rinse and repeat the process. Dump the deadbeats when you find you have too many people to follow.

      What exactly do you mean by "keep the people that followed you back?
      When you run your screenname through friendstatistics.com, it gives you a report based on your last 10 (or more) digg submissions. The data includes which of your mutuals dugg your stories, who is following you who dugg your stories, and which of your mutuals or people you're a fan of dugg none of your stories (ie the deadbeats).

      So, overall you want to create a following of people who digg your stories without over-burdening yourself by following people who ignore you. Hence, you drop the deadbeats and add some of the followers.
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  • Profile picture of the author freeburd
    Daniel,

    This is one of the most insightful and smartest posts on the forum I've seen so far. No, you are not too wordy. And I am too old for flattery anyway. :p

    Now find time and post what you left out. Your knowledge, understanding and experience with Digg is extremely valuable to hide and is very beneficial to many internet marketers, even though not everybody might digg you right away.

    Originally Posted by Daniel Adams View Post

    Hi folks,
    I've been running websites, and using digg, for a couple of years now and I see a lot of people either using digg the wrong way or not taking advantage of obvious opportunities to profit from the site.

    Most users would call me a typical power digger. I've had over 200 front pages (a fp story=thousands of viewers) since I started using the site. Here's my account
    Digg / HeDiggMe
    Digg / HeDiggMe / History / Submissions
    If you look at my last few pages of submissions, I get about 40% of my stories to the front page. The 27% figure is skewed low from the early years of my account.

    So without writing a long and involved ebook, here is how you become a power digger and some ways you can take advantage of digg traffic.

    First, being a power digger is simple:
    1) create an account and follow 80-100 other top diggers whom you find interesting. To find power diggers, go to di66.net or socialblade.com
    2) several times a day whenever you have a few minutes free, go to your account page >> Friends activity >> Submissions
    3) Digg all your friends' stories. Leave a witty comment if you think of one
    4) Post interesting stories/videos/articles about any subject. I rarely submit more than 4 on a busy day
    5) After a few days go to friendstatistics.com and put in your user name. keep the people who followed you back or any new followers you have. Rinse and repeat the process. Dump the deadbeats when you find you have too many people to follow.
    *Optional* 6) Get a gtalk account and put it in your profile page. Do NOT use your primary google account. I use pidgin for all my instant messaging.

    I repeat steps 3 & 4 several times a day. Step 5 once a week. I quit my IM list when it got to be too distracting.
    Now, how to optimize and profit from digg:

    Submitting your squeeze page or sales page is pointless if your goal is direct traffic (which it should be).
    People reading digg are the least qualified buyers. Therefore you should be posting stories about general topics and advertise a more specific niche from that article. For example an article about approaching women may have an ad or a teaser for a dating niche squeeze page.

    If you ignore that advice and do post a squeeze/sales page, do it from an account who is not a regular digg user.
    The only reason to submit such a page is to rank in search engines, so make good use of keywords in the title. A digg user with a following will get flamed for spamming, but an unknown account will serve your purpose.

    If you edit the website, spread the article over 2-4 pages, but not 20 pages
    This increases pageviews and decreases the load on your server. Also, link to related pages on your site and friends' sites, especially if you see a load of traffic coming.

    Submit stories from friends' sites. You have leverage to expand your network.
    If you post an article from somebody's site and it hits the front page, at least shoot them a courtesy email. You started a conversation that could lead to a good relationship in the future. If it's a mainstream news organization, try the author. Also see if they have a social media person. If they do, you just made their day.

    Only submit a story if you think it can make the front page...
    Your eye for this gets better with experience. The reason I point this out is because people will ask you to post stories for them. A LOT. Get used to saying no, and make sure they are aware it's not about them if you think their content sucks. I usually tell people I'll take a look at their article before agreeing to do anything. Likewise before I ask somebody for a digg, I gauge how much they like the story first, and if they have room to submit one more right now.

    ...but do not expect every story to make the front page.
    Depending on 1 story to get 20k pageviews is way too risky.

    The majority of your stories should be articles that you find fascinating and you have no personal stake.
    And keep posting a few stories a day, so you have enough to gauge who's been following you next time you're on friendstatistics.com. Good sources for stories are fark.com, reddit.com, and the "most popular stories" widget on any news site.

    Also post stories from the most commonly sourced websites
    Stats of the Most Popular Posts: Digg's Top Sources - 365 days | di66.net

    -use the firefox or chrome extension to quickly see if a page has been submitted already

    Do not submit every page from your site.
    Rarely submit stories from your own site.
    Have other diggers post stories from your site.
    I know that's actually 3 points, but they are 3 common & similar mistakes that frequently get accounts or sites banned.

    Do not rely on digg or any 1 method as your sole source of traffic.
    That's just stupid.

    Don't pay or agree to be paid for diggs.
    Also stupid and not worth it. You will get better $ from the pageviews and lead generation anyway. As I mentioned earlier, any digging you do for anyone should be for the sake of opening/extending a conversation. You can talk other business later when you have their attention.


    This got long and I left out a lot. If you have questions or fine points let me know
    DJA
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  • Profile picture of the author shuvo
    Wow thanks for sharing these tips and I hope it will help us to drive more traffic with digg.
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